You’ve Got Mail, written and directed by Nora Ephron, based on the play by Miklos Laszlo

You’ve Got Mail, written and directed by Nora Ephron, based on the play by Miklos Laszlo

You may find this comedy endearing, romantic, and charming or dismiss it as overblown, artificial and preposterous, depending on how you appreciate the acting of Meg Ryan, for instance, that does not do any favors to this feature, in the view of the undersigned.

Meg Ryan is phenomenal, outstanding, fabulous in a comedy that is in the top Best 10 Comedies Ever Made, if not the Top Five, When Harry Met Sally, but even if she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, her presence here is not as successful as she was in the role of Sally.

In this Mail motion picture, she plays Kathleen Kelly, the owner of a bookshop, an intelligent, determined, kind – she has never fired any of her staff – perhaps somewhat less exceptional as a manager, in an age when profits keep a business alive – indeed, except for the failed communist doctrines, that is essence of commerce.

Threatening her livelihood, Joe Fox aka Tom Hanks, a mogul owner of a bookstore chain opens a new outlet in the neighborhood, to the chagrin of employees, shop proprietor, well-wishers and other romantic characters unaware that Amazon would sink them all anyway.

This is one aspect of the script that, although well intentioned and make some kind of a point, is otherwise off the mark in that it seems to promote what? – Socialism, the idea that profits must be forgotten and everyone should work for charity?

Yes, there is  a strong case in favor of shops that are near, do not look like shopping malls – as Kathleen Kelly explains in a speech delivered before a crowd that gathered to keep the bookshop alive – and provide a quintessential service for their community, with staff that know their books, as opposed to those hired in the book megamall.

However, as Amazon has proved in the meantime – the film was released in 1998 when writers could not anticipate the magnitude of the colossus that dominates the book selling industry and so much else as part of the FANGs fighting the BATs, that is American Internet giants versus their Chinese counterparts, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google against Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent…

One day, Joe Fox enters the bookshop of his miniscule competitor, with his children, who want to buy some books and gifts; they get to know the friendly employees and owner, without divulging the fact that he is the loathsome magnate that might crush them soon.

Nevertheless, they soon meet at a social gathering, where they change some words, to the amazement of some friend who knows the man, comes to Kathleen in wonder at the fact that she is talking to her fierce enemy, at least in business terms.

From this moment on, they meet in the neighborhood, after they have a clash at that social shindig, trying to avoid each other, while they communicate through the mail in the title.

In virtual reality, they get along famously, she opens up to him, even asks for advice, seeing as she is in financial straits and her shop might have to close, he says he is a successful business man and he can tell her what to do – without specifics, for they have agreed to anonymity online.

As the real Joe, the virtual stranger has a fixation on the Godfather, opining that this is the ultimate work, the philosophy one needs, for it provides answers for all sorts of situations.

When they first met, the hero tries to be funny talking about the moment when Tom Hagen speaks with the film director about offering an important part – the leading one actually – to a protégée of Don Corleone – based probably on Frank Sinatra.

The director refuses, explains at dinner the way the actor has taken advantage of a young, beautiful actress that they both liked and is now ruined, therefore the film maker would never forget or forgive and there would be no part in any of his future films…up to the point where he finds the infamous head of Khartoum in his bed, early in the morning.

In the mail messages they exchange, the business guru talks again about The Godfather, with the solution for the problem: “go to the mattresses” which means in the chef d’oeuvre fighting the other criminal families and in this comedy it suggests that the woman needs to battle for her shop.

When the romantic leads agree to meet, Joe Fox discovers that the woman he talks to online is actually his bitter enemy, so he hesitates, walks in and maintains for a while the pretense that he is not the same person as the “virtual partner”.

Some would like this and find it amusing.

This cinephile did not.

It feels syrupy, false, pretentious and ultimately misguided, for two people who hate each other initially might find that the object of their fears, loathing might be not as bad, but to base a long term relationship on some exchanges from the airless, fake medium of the internet which are contradicted by face to face antagonism seems futile and destined for catastrophe.

But hey, who knows, they say love is blind, then that it finds a way, opposites attract, in love you never say sorry…there is so much stupid and clever talk on the matter that we cannot propose a definite, reasonable statement.